Because the MAGA movement made kookiness a competitive sport, it was inevitable that some Republican activists would turn on Donald Trump for not being unhinged enough. Trump has 34 felony convictions and three more pending criminal trials to go. He spends his time making joking threats about "the ovens" to Jewish people, fantasizing about setting "up a migrant league of fighters," and reminiscing about the "late, great Hannibal Lecter," a fictional cannibal. This behavior is still not bizarre enough for the We the People AZ Alliance, which appears largely funded by Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, a once fierce Trump ally deeply involved with the 2020 attempted coup. Now Byrne's group, which is linked to the conspiracy theorist-turned-Republican senatorial candidate Kari Lake, has started an Arizona Republican revolt against Trump.
According to a weekend report from the Washington Post, a faction of Arizona delegates to the Republican National Convention has concocted "a secret plan to throw the party’s nomination of Donald Trump for president into chaos." These aren't moderates worried about nominating a convicted criminal as president. Byrne has been tweeting that Trump is "surrounded by DEEP STATE nobodies." While it's not entirely clear what the anti-Trump MAGA flank wants, part of what they seem to be suggesting is that Trump needs a QAnon-level maniac like former general Mike Flynn to be his running mate — or to replace him as the presidential nominee entirely. The situation is threatening enough to Trump's campaign that they are trying to replace these faithless delegates and are sending out irate memos alleging "a multi-state conspiracy."
